EU Immigration and Asylum Law and Policy Droit et Politique de l'Immigration et de l'Asile de l'UE

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By Dr. Violeta Moreno-Lax, Lecturer in Law, Queen Mary University of London

This is the first part of a two-part blog. See here for part II.

Part I

On 7 February 2017, Advocate General Mengozzi handed down his Opinion in the case of X, X v État belge, regarding the right to visas of limited territorial validity (LTV) on humanitarian grounds when there is a risk that an applicant will be exposed to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment. The Advocate General’s opinion was handed down against the backdrop of difficult negotiations between the European Parliament and the Council on provisions for humanitarian visas in the recast Community Code on Visas. This blog post, published in two parts, was prepared before Advocate General Mengozzi handed down his Opinion in X, X, but it takes into account this opinion. It was presented at the 2nd Annual Conference of the ODYSSEUS Network on 10 February 2017.

This post draws on Chapters 4 (visas), 7 (EU Charter), 8 (non-refoulement), 9 (asylum), and 10 (remedies) of Accessing Asylum in Europe (OUP, forthcoming in 2017), and takes account of previous research here, here, here, and here (see further Academia). Continue reading »

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Par Henri Labayle, Centre de Documentation et de Recherches Européennes (CDRE)  

Les polémiques entourant l’application de l’Executive Order signé le 25 janvier 2017 par Donald Trump, président des Etats Unis nouvellement élu, interdisant temporairement l’entrée aux Etats-Unis aux ressortissants de sept pays et suspendant le jeu de la protection internationale, ont quitté les colonnes médiatiques pour pénétrer les prétoires. Motivé par le désir de lutter préventivement contre le terrorisme, selon ses auteurs, et par une volonté discriminatoire envers les musulmans, selon ses détracteurs, le texte pose de graves problèmes juridiques.

L’attention qu’on lui porte ne doit pas masquer qu’au même moment, le 31 janvier 2017, la Cour de justice de l’Union prononçait un arrêt important sur les liens qui peuvent être établis entre la nécessité de lutter contre le terrorisme et le dispositif protecteur des réfugiés politiques (CJUE, 31 janvier 2017, Lounani, C-573/16).

Si l’on ajoute à ces épisodes majeurs l’émoi provoqué en Turquie le 26 janvier 2017 par le refus de la Cour suprême grecque d’accepter l’extradition de huit militaires turcs qualifiés eux-aussi de « terroristes », on mesure à quel point les liaisons dangereuses désormais établies au grand jour entre le droit des réfugiés et la lutte contre le terrorisme deviennent monnaie courante et alimentent le débat public, juridique ou pas.

Ce constat mérite un éclairage et suscite une réflexion d’autant plus nécessaire que ces liaisons sont parfois fondées, malheureusement. Depuis le 11 septembre 2001, la lutte contre le terrorisme met en question ouvertement le jeu des règles du droit des réfugiés, à force d’amalgames (I), au risque de fragiliser la protection qui est due à ces réfugiés (II). D’où l’intérêt d’un contrôle attentif du juge, interne comme européen (III). Continue reading »

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by Daniel Thym, Universität Konstanz

This is the final post in our series of blogs aimed at providing an enriching background to the topics that will be discussed during our annual conference titled “Beyond ‘crisis’? The State of Immigration and Asylum Law and Policy in the EU” , which will take place in Brussels on 10 February 2017.

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The crisis of the Common European Asylum System has been a major political and academic concern over the past months. Various issues were discussed at length on this blog and elsewhere, including the EU-Turkey Statement, the Commission Proposal for a Dublin IV Regulation and, most recently, cooperation with countries in Northern Africa. By contrast, the three Commission Proposals on a revision of the Reception Conditions Directive and the adoption of novel Asylum Procedures and Qualification Regulations, which were published just before last year’s summer recess on 13 July 2016, have received little attention so far. This contribution shows how closer inspection of the proposals helps to identify core challenges in the reform of the CEAS.

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by Dr. Madalina Bianca Moraru, Research Fellow, Centre for Judicial Cooperation, European University Institute

We continue our series of blogs aimed at providing an enriching background to the topics that will be discussed during our annual conference titled “Beyond ‘crisis’? The State of Immigration and Asylum Law and Policy in the EU” , which will take place in Brussels on 10 February 2017.

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Immigration detention under the Return Directive (RD) has been the subject of numerous academic studies, reports and practitioners’ manuals. So far the focus has been primarily on the increasing phenomenon of criminalisation of irregular stay/entry (see, for instance, the REDIAL blog commentary of the Celaj case), the relation between immigration detention under the Return Directive and criminal law, or the EU Member States compliance with the most controversial provisions of the Return Directive related to immigration detention. Judicial scrutiny of immigration detention was usually assessed from the European perspective (notably, the standards set by the ECtHR and the CJEU case law). However, the life of a case does not finish in these forums, it is up to the national courts to implement these judgments, which sometimes implies difficult choices to be made by national courts, such as: disapplying national legislation; striking down established administrative practice; re-designing relations between the judiciary and the administration; or challenging judicial approaches of superior national courts.

This contribution focuses on a less researched aspect, namely the role of national courts in the implementation of pre-removal detention measures. In particular, the national courts’ contribution to clarifying the abstract EU concept of ‘risk of absconding’ and its standards of application, their exercise of judicial control over the open ended national definitions of this notion and the detention orders issued by administrative authorities. The contribution will show how instances of vertical judicial interactions (between European supranational courts and domestic courts) and horizontal judicial interactions (among various national courts) have contributed to the enhancement of fundamental rights of detainees in return proceedings by way of: clarifying convoluted EU notions, such as ‘the risk of absconding’; re-shaping national legislation and jurisprudence in conflict with the Return Directive, EU Charter and the ECHR; and re-drawing the division of powers between the judiciary and the administration on the adoption and control of pre-removal detention. This contribution draws on a broader study of domestic judicial scrutiny of pre-removal detention of TCNs across the 28 Member States (REDIAL Research Report 2016/05), which concludes a more general study on judicial implementation of all the Return Directive’s main chapters (REDIAL European Reports) funded by the European Return Fund. This project is accompanied by a Database putting almost 1000 of the national cases used in the research studies at the disposal of all interested persons.

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by Céline Bauloz, Refugee Law Initiative, School of Advanced Study, University of London

We continue our series of blogs aimed at providing an enriching background to the topics that will be discussed during our annual conference titled “Beyond ‘crisis’? The State of Immigration and Asylum Law and Policy in the EU” , which will take place in Brussels on 10 February 2017.

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The so-called migration/refugee crisis has shed light on the limits of the EU and its Member States’ ability – and willingness – to effectively deal with larger flows of migrants. This crisis has been largely depicted as a policy crisis rather than one of numbers (see most notably P. De Bruycker; M. Den Heijer, J. Rijpma & T. Spijkerboer; V. Chetail), and for good reasons. Looking only at refugee data at the peak of the crisis in 2015, UNHCR accounts for 86 percent of the world’s refugees being hosted in developing regions and 6 percent in Europe.

As the absolute number of arrivals in the EU has nevertheless greatly increased, the EU strategy has been to address both the structural deficiencies of its internal migration and asylum policy and the migratory pressure at its external borders. This last strategic objective has been most notably tackled at the EU external policy level through increased cooperation with third countries. After the 2015 Valletta Summit, the 2015 EU-Turkey Joint Action Plan and the 2016 EU-Turkey Statement, the European Commission proposed a new Migration Partnership Framework (MPF) which was endorsed by the European Council in June 2016. Presented as a new approach for more coordinated, systematic and structured cooperation with third countries, this contribution provides an overview of the MPF and its operationalization before undertaking a more critical assessment of its potential and prospects.   

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by Dr Lilian Tsourdi, European University Institute  

We continue our series of blogs aimed at providing an enriching background to the topics that will be discussed during our annual conference titled “Beyond ‘crisis’? The State of Immigration and Asylum Law and Policy in the EU” , which will take place in Brussels on 10 February 2017.

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The ‘hotspot approach to migration management’ is one of the building blocks of EU’s response to what has been perceived as a crisis. Studies by the research unit of the European Parliament and ECRE have outlined its functioning and commented on the fundamental rights challenges it raises. Francesco Maiani reflected in this blog on its pertinence to enhancing solidarity and fair-sharing within the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), concluding that it undermines it instead. This contribution focuses on another aspect, notably the trends in the implementation of the asylum policy vividly portrayed through operations as part of the hotspot approach. I illustrate this through studying the evolving role of the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) in operational activities.  Aspects of this contribution draw on a broader study published in the e-journal European Papers 1(3) under the title ‘Bottom-up Salvation? From Practical Cooperation towards Joint Implementation through the European Asylum Support Office’.

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